Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) - The flow of inward remittances fell significantly in the month of February 2013 mainly due to fewer working days, officials said.
Bangladeshi nationals working abroad sent US$ 1.1156 billion in 19 working days of February last, less by $ 171.36 million than the amount remitted in the previous month. In 23 working days of January 2013, the remittances were worth $1.327 billion, according to the central bank statistics.
“The inflow of remittances may have an adverse effect in the coming months if the prevailing political turmoil persists,” a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country’s central bank, told BBN in Dhaka.
Bangladesh received $ 9.884 billion during the July-February period of the current fiscal year (FY 2012-13), registering a 17.35 per cent growth over the corresponding period of the last fiscal, the BB data showed.
The central bank officials also said the increasing trend of manpower export has helped to raise the inflow of remittances in recent months.
More than 36,600 job seekers went abroad in January last, up from 4,264 manpower of the previous month of the last calendar year, according to the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET) statistics.
A total of 607,798 workers went to various job destinations in 2012 while the number was 568,062 in 2011.
The BB earlier took a series of measures to encourage the expatriate Bangladeshis to send their money through the formal banking channel, instead of the illegal "hundi" system to boost the country's foreign exchange reserves.
Currently, some private commercial banks along with the state-owned commercial banks are desperately trying to increase the flow of inward remittances from the Middle East, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Italy and the United States.
"We're establishing new contacts with the exchange houses abroad so that our overseas workers can easily send home money," a senior official of a commercial bank said, adding that some commercial banks are trying to set up their own exchange houses in different parts of the world.
The country's foreign exchange reserve stood at $ 14.105 billion on Tuesday.
BBN/SSR/AD-05Mar13-8:04 pm (BST)
